Hater

By: David Moody

Narrated by: Gerard Doyle

Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's Summary

Within seconds, normally rational, self-controlled people become frenzied killers. Christened "Haters" by the media, the attackers strike without warning, killing all who cross their path. People are afraid to go to work, afraid to leave their homes, afraid that at any moment their friends or family could turn on them. In the face of this mindless terror, Danny McCoyne must secure his family, seek shelter, and watch as the world falls apart. "Attack first, ask questions later" becomes the order of the day.

Soon to be a major motion picture produced by Guillermo del Toro and directed by J. A. Bayona.

©2006 David Moody (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic Reviews

"The novel moves at a deliberate, relentless pace, feeding readers just enough information to keep them perplexed and paranoid....Moody creates some truly chilling scenes, but there are also flashes of black comedy." ( Kirkus Reviews)
"Originally self-published, Moody's nail-biter of a debut plausibly creates a nightmare world....this intelligent, well-written chiller heralds a significant new talent." ( Publishers Weekly)
"It's a risky undertaking, giving literary form to a type of story that is traditionally told in pictures, but Moody completely pulls it off." ( Booklist)

Terrifying! In the spirit of King or Koontz

There aren't so many good horror books around these days--I look at the horror section and see the Southern Vampire Mysteries or Twilight. Those aren't too bad, but they are NOT scary. I want scary.

Hater gave me enough scary to last for a couple of weeks. It has the classic structure of early Stephen King, where we meet the main character and The Bad Situation slowly spreads, giving the book momentum. By the end you're completely unable to stop listening.

The Bad Situation, in this case, is that normal people are suddenly going plain bonkers and killing family members, coworkers, even random bystanders. These once-normal people are the Haters of the title, and from the first description you're wondering how long society will last before the breakdown.

Danny McCoyne hates his life as a minor civil servant, but the Haters eventually get past even his rock-solid insulation. He comes off as a bit of a whiner for about the first quarter of the book (not helped by the slightly-whiney narrator), but later on he loses the tone and you start hoping nothing bad's going to happen to him.

Like all good speculative fiction, Hater draws parallels to our own society. It points out how sharply divided we are over things that seem pretty small in the long view. It doesn't offer incisive commentary or anything, but the metaphor gives Hater a good hook.

I give the book four stars because some parts could have been edited out without changing much about the story. Also, one caution--some scenes are extremely violent, and I hope the upcoming movie goes a little easy on those. But overall, at 7+ hours, Hater is a good time investment that will return a LOT of scary for your credits!

Too Successful for Its Own Good

This book is read and written perfectly for what its intent is. However, as its intent is to set up character(s) in a world where society is consently pounding them into submission, hearing the setup is as painful to me as to the narrator as it really is successful at setting up the tension (I'll use that word for lack of better one as I don't want to spoil the plot).

I did have trouble early on listening to the book because of that, but I'm glad I stuck with it. The book could not have been better sped up. It needs to build up the background properly, and it did it.

What a fun listen this was!

I only listen to books while I drive. Once a month or so I drive to Laughlin and once or twice a year I drive from California to Florida. I am always looking for good audio books to listen to on those drives. I just finished Hater on my last trip to Laughlin and I loved it!

Gerard Doyle's voice I thought was perfect for this character. I could feel his frustrations and fears in the way he spoke. He had this everyman quality but an everyman that is really tired of and beaten down by life that I could totally understand.

The book kept my interest non-stop. I wanted to know what was happening. I cared what happened to the main character and the twist towards the end was well done because even as it was happening you're not really sure if what's happening is what you think is happening. Well done!

I look forward to the sequel out in June 2010.

A simple, but literary plague story.

"Hater" stands out among plague/zombie fiction in that it has something to offer beyond thrills and chills. The story itself is simple and fairly straightforward (with one not very surprising twist), but the themes suggested by the novel are not.

"Hater" isn't an action-packed gorefest (although both elements are present in the work), and may seem slow for readers expecting more of an action story.

But for readers who enjoy plague/zombie fiction, and have been waiting for a novel that is not only thrilling but well-written and insightful, I unreservedly recommend "Hater."

A bit annoying

An indication of just how little this audiobook held my interest is that I had 15 minutes of the book remaining at one point, but it was a week before it occurred to me to finish it.

I spent the first 3/4 of the book mostly annoyed by the main character, who is what an anti-hero would be if you subtracted the "hero." He spends most of his time complaining ad nauseum how terrible his life is - work, family, the world in general. I mean, this goes on and on and on, paragraph after paragraph, to the point that you wish they guy would just walk off a cliff somewhere. And yet he admits to being lazy, unable to control his actions, bad with money, etc. It's really hard to like this guy.

Also, the author took the unusual approach of alternating between first person present tense and third person past tense. That didn't work for me.

I don't mind a slow build-up so long as there is some kind of identifiable progression of the plot, but in this book you realize early on that there are "haters" and that their numbers are rising, and you just end up in a holding pattern for most of the rest of the book, until at last something happens toward the last act or two. I can safely advise that if at any point you get bored in his story, just skip ahead to the next section, and you won't have missed any critical plot points. It's just more of the same.

The end was okay. No spoilers here, except to say I'd have liked more resolution after all that tedious, annoying build-up. I think the author was attempting some kind of philosophical argument about hate, but it's not clear what he was going for. Presumably the person who spontaneously kills people is on equal moral footing with those who try to kill him as a consequence, or something like that? Very murky.

Story is set in England so the reader is English. The accent was more Ricky Gervais than Hugh Grant, though. Suited the character.

Horrible

I listen to a lot of audiobooks and must say this is by far the all time worst yet.
The story develops so slowly. I was thinking the pace would pick up when the story got interesting.
It never did pick up the pace or get interesting.
There is this long build up to nothing. It is like the author had to finish the story for a deadline because it just ends telling you little to nothing.
There are a lot of other audiobooks out there to pick that are real thrillers. This book literally put me to sleep at times.

Wished someone would murder the protagonist.

The only thing that kept me going through to the end was the forlorn hope that the main character, Danny, would get killed by the "haters." Sadly, it was not to be. Like many other reviewers noted, Danny and his wife are adult children, no more responsible than their three real children. Danny whines and complains about EVERYTHING. He says he loves his wife and kids - then launches into a diatribe about them "pissing me off" and "I'm losing my patience." The book is constant repetition of this "woe is me" theme until the end, when Danny changes. Then it's constant repetition on why what he's doing is so right and natural.

********SPOILER, SORT OF************


Most novels revolve the main character recognizing a flaw in their character and the situation of the story forcing them to confront that flaw and change for the better. "Haters" does the opposite. Danny is eventually given free reign to his displeasure with society and his family. Problem is the rationale is so weak that there is no explanation as to what the "haters" are or why they feel threatened by the "others." They kill because "it's kill or be killed" but Moody gives no example where one of the "others" attempts to kill a "hater" first. The Haters are the instigators. True, the government begins rounding up haters for extermination, but since Haters kill non-haters on sight what choice is there? Moody, I think, attempts, I think, to make Danny a sympathetic character, but fails by not explaining the unreasonable fear Haters have of the "others." I made it to the end and was presented by a "to be continued," no thanks.

Hated It

First off, listening to the protagonist's thoughts and observations in real time is grating as hell, especially the way Gerard Doyle's whiny voice speaks them. (This book may stop me from reading Val McDermid's Tony Tony hill books, which Doyle also reads.). The character is unsympathetic, and I was really hoping he'd die at the end, which is the only reason I finished this book. I loathe the story concept, too--normal people suddenly turning into human monsters consumed by, at first, fear for their own safety from random strangers and acquaintances, then into people filled with hate. No explanation, although I noted that there are 2 more books in this first series that MAY explain the phenomenon but I don't care enough to find out. Moody seems to be setting up this minority percentage of the population as the real heroes, despite the fact that the Haters are the aggressors.

Pass The Skittles...Let’s Sneak Into The Next Theatre

Slow and boring. Moody should have combined the books in this series and he might have had a great story. Instead, he wrote a book with little character development and a pace as slow as molasses. I should have figured since this has been his mo forever. Too bad, because this book did have some good, if not original, ideas. The narration couldn’t rise above the material.

Halfway through, having a hard time.

The lead protagonist is a whiny little brat of a man, so much so that it distracts from the story line. I keep hoping he gets killed off in the next chapter just to shut him up, but alas, it's written in first person so I'm left to assume in stuck with him.